Talim General Discussion and Q&A

Crap, which one is wind leap and which is wind sault? one is the auto backwards evade and the other is 6B+K.

And WC1 is the one that comes out after AA2, and WC2 is the one you get from BB2, right?

Waiting for kAb to go ham so I can steal his strats. >:3
 
Memory is fuzzy, I think we called auto evade stance gunslinger, GS for short. Forward flip stance we settled on wind leap since instead of wind sault. (WS) while standing was a lot more common than while landing (WL) and talims while landing moves are generally crap.

For those that don't know her gunslinger stance is an auto evade stance that happens after certain moves. You are at a very high negative on block, but by holding one of the 4 cardinal directions (2,4,6,8) you would do an evade should the opponent try and attack you.

2 and 8 produced a WC2 side step in the corresponding direction.
6 did put you in WL where you could do any of her WL options
4 did a backwards flip with the option of tacking on a b that produced a 66b that always had GB properties. Should it hit standard 66b 44b combo would still work.

The moves she was able to do gunslinger off of were
2a+b
1b
6ba
BT aa
WJ a

I feel like I might be missing one but this is what I know for sure.
 
Things to spam: 33A, 1A, 1K, 44K, 1A+B/FC1A+B, BB and I guess chain throw. The rest are of nebulous value compared to these tools (although a lot are good.)
 
Hi and welcome to the General Discussion/Q&A Thread for Talim.

Please use this thread to ask any questions you might have about SC2 Talim or to discuss things about her in general.

Thank you.
 
33a, 44a, 22b, 66b and AS k are all decent in their own way.

33a- chunky damage, ok range, safe, knockdown

44a-super deceptive range, this thing hits FAR. Decent damage, knockdown, safe. Has deadly followup if people get anxious and want to whiff punish it.

22b- long range launcher that leads into 22b6, WL stomp, 44b or 4b into mixups

66b- long range, leads to 44b on hit for decent damage.

AS k- leads in to AS b on hit, long range, hard for some characters to punish on block..
 
33a, 44a, 22b, 66b and AS k are all decent in their own way.

If I'm already in motion, 33A is THE go-to option. My problem is when you step~G or complete a Backdash. The time it takes to confirm a whiff is already too late to do much more than pokes, or move in for a mixup.
Unfortunately, you can't buffer 33_99_11_77 inputs from neutral like SC4(maybe SC3?) or I'd only be using 33A, lol.

When X or Mina, for instance whiff a 3B at that range, they recover too quick for 66B (or AS K), and if ducked they get a free punish. (In mina's case she can sometimes 4A to escape, but that's char specific) 22B is a bit on the slow side as well. 6A+B is great on range, but again, kinda slow.

However, 44A sounds like something I can work into my game more. Gotta re-test the range on it.
 
So after I've been fooling around in training and keeping up with the SUPERB online SC2 community, I noticed after some moves like 6A+B, 2A+B, 1B (probably more, don't remember) Talim sometimes does her big-back-jump-thing and i've no idea why o.o
Thoughts?
 
So after I've been fooling around in training and keeping up with the SUPERB online SC2 community, I noticed after some moves like 6A+B, 2A+B, 1B (probably more, don't remember) Talim sometimes does her big-back-jump-thing and i've no idea why o.o
Thoughts?
Talim does not have Wind-Leap in this game... instead she has something called "Gunslinger".

You'll notice after moves like 1B, Talim flourishes one of her tonfas around like a gun. IF the opponent presses an attack button during this "Gunslinger" stance, and you are holding up or down, you will do an AST2 (wind charmer 2, which leaves you in backturn). If you are holding back, you will do a wind-leap type back-jump; its the ONLY place in the game she can do wind-leap. In addition to this, if you hit B during wind-leap, you will do a secret move... a guard crushing 66B.

If the opponent does not attack during your gunslinger, Talim will do nothing. Its kind of a useless move.
 
Going through Talim's moveset.... These are what I consider her best moves. In the past, we called "Wind-charmer" as "AST" (Auto-Side-Turn).

:3::3::A: - Even though the move's tracking properties were clearly nerfed in the PAL version, its still a great move.

:B::B: strings (The Killer Bees) - If you watch me play Talim, you'll see that unlike most other Talims I don't spam 33A. I instead spam the killer bees. The killer bees are thusly named because they are in essence one of the strongest vortexes in SC2. From the killer bees, you can do lows, mids, sidesteps, throws, auto-gis, tech crouches, etc... She has so many options from these strings because of AST2 (wind charmer 2). Its one of the reasons why AST2 does not exist in SC3/4.

:1::A: - A long range low, that tech-crouches, tracks, is pretty safe, and does a decent amount of damage. Knocks down on counter-hit; and gives advantage on regular hit... leaves her in crouch; which brings me to the next set of moves:

WR :B: - One of the things I tell people... if you force Talim into crouch, STOP ATTACKING... she's where she wants to be! Talim has the fastest while rising move in the game with this... and its a B, so it crushes horizontals. Not to mention, it tech crouches (unlike the SC3/4 version).

WR :A: - Pretty much the same as her WR B; fast (though not as fast as WR B) and tech crouches... and now rings out like a cannon... with a very minor built in sidestep.

:4::B::B: - In the Arcade, this move wasn't that powerful, because it wasn't cancellable during the delay. However, in the console versions, the fact that you can cancel the delayed version and release the cancel to attack on pretty much any frame allowed for some great mind games. If you cancelled, you could cancel it into the extremely powerful AST2 which I previously mentioned.

:1::A+B: - Back in the day, we called this move "JESUS!". Because when you get hit by it, thats what you say! Why? Because its a tech-crouch on frame 0; and in the American version led to a 40% combo with 44B... sadly nerfed a bit in the European damage. You can even do it from crouch! (unlike the SC3/4 version). There are not many "low-mid" strings in SC2; its mostly "low-high"; so you can block the low, wait for the high to whiff and take a free 40% damage. Not to mention, its was a great mid-range punish against characters like Taki.

:4::4: strings - This is a mixup that no other Talim players used... and it tailored to my style of play, and I will explain why... Back in the days of SC2, people were not aware of things like audio-cues; while some people would use in-game sounds and voices to determine what moves their opponents were doing, most people did not do it consciously. When I do a 44 move, I bang my stick VERY loudly (on purpose). And I would start with 44K. Eventually people would subconsciously hear the bang of my 44 and block low. In which case I would start doing 44B; which did MASSIVE damage in the US version (nerfed in PAL). Eventually they would clue in and simply GI low/mid when they heard the bang... in which case I did 44AA236B, which did even more damage and rang out. Mind-games. This mixup was intentionally removed in SC3/4 with the passive changes to Talim's kicks.

:1::K: - One of the fastest lows in the game. Combined with her other kicks, we called it "little legs of doom". While yes, her kicks did not do that much damage; you were so afraid of the rest of her toolkit that you were just forced to take her kicks and accept it.

:4::B+K: - This is undisputed, Talim's WORST move! However, during SC2, there was a glitch called 2G. Post-GI, a player could hit 2G and automatically block 3 frames of hit, during the state in which they are not supposed to be able to block. This move however, has 4 hits. If the opponent did 2G, they would block the first hit, and eat the remaining 3. Because of this, the last 3 hits of the move did not scale properly; the opponent would take 25% damage and possibly get rung out. This was the ultimate 2G killer in SC2. Its also a really slow move post-GI; so people tend to whiff a reverse-GI if you mixed it up with post-GI 1A+B (the goto post-GI damage). kAb discovered the power of this move, and it forever changed how I played Talim.

Try not to use wind-sault with Talim in SC2. I keep doing it out of habit because of SC3/4; but its not good. As you can see from this list, there is so much that states "unlike the SC3/4 version". When SC3 was made, they purposely went out of their way to destroy any good moves Talim had in her gameplay.
 
Last edited:
IMO talims best sc gb is a level 1. So a+b+k~g is pretty useful.

Her 11b is a lvl1 guard crush. After 11b is blocked she can go into WC1 where WC1 A must be re-GI'd or 2g'd. Just do the WC1 transition to bait the re gi and do whatever. She can also go into wind leap for further mixups.
Yeah, I cant remember the exact frames...
but I remember LAU discovered that SCL1 11B~AST1 was like +bajillion frames on guard crush.
 
One thing I do recall from back in the day is that there was a very famous Talim player named "Shauno"; when it came down to it, Shauno wasn't winning anything. However, he was one of the first people to write a guide for Talim called "The Artful Dodger". Rather than focusing on her vortex potential, this guide focused on Talim's ability to evade. While, her evade ability is powerful; in a game like SC2 where everyone can Step-G, it wasn't really relevant outside of her tech crouches.

Most people who played Talim back in the day, based their entire style of play on this guide. And I remember it was such a distinct style of Talim play that you could instantly notice that they were following the Shauno guide, and proceed to destroy them with non-stop horizontals. DO NOT play Talim based on evades! DO NOT play her defensively. Play her like you would play Mitsurugi; continually force your opponent to play your game; don't play theirs.

Talim's power does not come from playing defensively, forcing people to be afraid of 33A. Yes, 33A is an extremely powerful move; however the reason why Talim was never considered top-tier during the heydays of SC2 was because once you figured out how to beat 33A, it became a non-issue. 33A was a "scrub-killer"; it destroyed people who didn't understand the matchup. Talim's power comes from her ability to play offensively, in a game that by nature was very defensive. Like Mitsurugi, she could continually force the opponent to play the guessing game with her vortexes.

A rumor later went around that before SC3; Shauno actually went to the developers, and told them piece by piece everything that made Talim "good"... which is why pretty much everything about SC2 Talim was nerfed so hard in SC3/4.
 
People should look into blocked ws A, and 3aa into step right 33a. Sc2 endgame tech I found, ws a is only -4 on block and has extreme left push on block, 3aa has a little less push but still effective. Immediate retaliation whiffs almost every time.

Also look at 22a8 WC1 A over knocked down opponents who like to do moves off the ground. Save this near the ring edge for a surprise RO.
 
Back