Very big thank you to all that attended the stream this evening! I know it was long & arduous but if it's helpful to anyone, then it was a success!
Here's a "transcript" of the stream content:
Overview for Kasumi Tutorial Breakdown
General Overview
- Kasumi is a rushdown & counter-hit fishing character that excels at CQC and mobility along with solid defense, courtesy of her strike speed, powerful long manipulative strings, quality throws, good movement options along with parries and holds. She is under the lightweight weight class allowing her to be juggled a fair bit if launched, but it's to be expected from someone with her overall speed and mobility.
- She has very fast poking speed in close at i9/i11/i12 along with an i11 high kick, i12 & i14 mid kicks, numerous fast mid punches including a tracking i14 mid punch, and an i14 low kick. Straight up, Kasumi is the fastest character in DOA5LR on every hit level and has the speed advantage against pretty much any opponent.
- Kasumi is considerably well-rounded overall and succeeds in a lot of categories, however her overall effective ranges generally require her to be close to her opponent regularly. This translates to relatively weaker turtling & whiff punishment capability compared to longer ranged characters.
- By and large Kasumi's guard break game isn't that strong against an opponent with tight reactions unless you successfully condition them to fear Kasumi's mid attacks. This is because her GB's are essentially highs, with the the except of her walled 7P, which is a +3 GB, and also happens to be her best GB. Really, any plus frames for Kasumi is a massive boost to her offense considering how overbearing her strike speeds can be to majority of the cast anyway.
- Kasumi's string manipulation game is outstanding and truly intimidating. Majority of her strings are delayable, can commonly branch off on all hit-levels, and can contain as many as 5 hits. Her 5P strings are most recommended for best utilization of string delay & manipulation. In fact, Kasumi high/mid/low mix-ups are a large aspect of her overall gameplan. Basically you want your opponents to be constantly on their toes in fear of Kasumi's amazing mix-up game. The way how she combines delays with free cancels can be terrifying to slower characters (or almost any opponent really). This is even before getting into her deadly throw game!
- Her low game is very strong with lows at the end of strings that can stun on NH such as PP2K or PP6P2K for example. A big aspect of working Kasumi's low game is making the opponent respect a string like 6PK then tripping them up with 6P2K once they are conditioned to block 6PK (which also happens to have respectable follow-ups in 6PKK & 6PK2K). The low kick from 6P2K can also follow off of 4P or 3P in the form of 4P2K & 3P2K. The low kick can be very delayable making it really difficult to always properly react to when you take Kasumi's other mix-up options into consideration.
- Kasumi's Crush game is solid with a decent repertoire of low & hi-crushes including 9K as your go to low crush which causes a hard knockdown setting up her strong oki game. It can also cause a bounce launch on CH or higher. 1P will be your go to hi-crush, which can stun on CH and has a high follow-up to discourage retaliation. 33P & 236P will be your go to hi crush launchers allowing decent juggles on CH. 236P can also tech jump lows in fact! Though it is a high so don't expect any sort of reward for beating out a low with it. 4P can be used to fish for CH's by hi-crushing jabs in close or around mid range even. 2H+K can hi-crush very well and can even go under some mids, causing a knockdown on NH. The move is kinda slow however. 8P is also a safe low crushing poke that provides a decent stun on NH.
- Kasumi can be very devastating with her opponent backed against a wall. A general strategy you can go by in most matches is to focus on rushing an opponent down with the intent of backing them into a corner where they'll both have to deal with Kasumi and the wall that they are backed up against. Kasumi's H+KK & PPKK can be good at blasting an opponent back into a corner. Once you have an opponent at the wall, your goal is essentially to wall slam then as often as you can to win the round. 6P6K will generally be your go to wall slam move. Use 6PP, 9K, 7K6, 3KK, 2KK, etc. as alternate wall slams for a mix-up.
- Her okizeme game is very strong with ways to reset an opponent on wake-up via hard knockdowns into ground hits, forced techs and powerful throws such as 236T, that can lead into more oki. 4H+K will generally be your go to forced tech move. Though using Kasumi's i14 2K on downed opponents is good too because of its deceptively good range and the fact that two consecutive 2K's automatically force tech up opponents. Same with 9K that happens to have a solid follow-up in 9KK along with low crushing Wake-Up Kicks (WUK) very well. Her oki becomes even more deadly when the opponent is backed into the corner because they'll then have to deal with her brutal wall game on top of that too.
- Her defense is quite good thanks to her useful holds and parries coupled with her devastating CH ability. Opponents will have trouble frame-trapping Kasumi due to having to deal with her i9 jab and i11 6P. Her throw punishment is solid, with good i12 throws and a powerful i17 throw that deals over 100 damage on Hi-Counter Throw (HCT). Her holds deal pretty good damage with her Low K Hold and Expert Mid K Hold leading into juggles. Her parries aren't amazing compared to other characters parries but the fact that a character with an i9 jab & i11 6P possesses parries is amazing. Hell she even has "Expert parries" that allow her to transition into her Hoshinpo stance. The main strength is the capability for her to option select mids when at disadvantage. I.e. she can parry both Mid P & Mid K mids with a single move. Using her parries wisely can make it fairly difficult for an opponent to gain any momentum over her due to how well she can turn the tides on her opponent.
- Kasumi's attack range is decent enough for a rushdown character, but of course leaves a little to be desired. She dominates close range combat and can fight from mid range, but anything beyond mid range is unoptimal for her. Characters with potent keepout can definitely test her "get-in" capabilities, but thankful Kasumi's solid movement can allow her to get in as long as she's careful about it. Her Hoshinpo dash allows her to approach while ducking high attacks. When at mid range, it's advised to poke with 3K & 4P predominantly due to their range and relative safety. 4P provides and nice stun on CH and 3K provides enough advantage to get your offense started. It also has a follow-up that the opponent has to respect, especially if they're in range of being wall-slammed or kicked off a cliff.
- Kasumi's stun game is great. Her strike speed coupled with the strength of her stuns makes her very difficult to SE out of, meaning that you're going to have to hold correctly against her more often than other characters. Kasumi plethora of fast pokes allow her to blitz through the stun threshold very quickly. 3PP will be your go to 2-in-1 Mid P stun extender if you're intending to get to critical level 3 stun. If you don't want to go that far into the threshold to keep a move like H+K as a viable option, extending with 6P, 4P or 3P is just as good. 3P induces a powerful lift stun that provides +35 advantage on CH. 4H+K causes a +26 sit-down stun (SDS) on NH allowing for a guaranteed 66P. H+K causes a very useful stumble stun that guarantees a 9K follow-up or 33K follow-up in corners. Same applies to PPK on CH.
- Kasumi's throw game is excellent. She can jokingly be dubbed the "best grappler" because she generally hits throws more often than any other character due to how well she can lock down her opponents. Her throw game is also fairly versatile too with throws for a variety of situations. Your go to throw will be her i12 236T for solid damage plus oki potential. For sheer damage you're either gunna use the i12 214T or i17 33T against whiffed holds. To open up an opponent on defense, you can use the i7 66T~T or 46T for +10 frame advantage. The i10 4T will be your position switch throw, and 6T will be your i7 punish throw. Kasumi's also one of the few characters to have an i5 neutral grab that can deal environmental damage along with being able to chuck the opponent off of cliffs. To catch opponents off guard you can use 8T or 9P~T, which are fast jumping throws. Kasumi also has her Oboro throw out of her Hoshinpo stance to snatch opponents that freeze up during a Hoshinpo mix-up. Note that 9P~T can also be done out of Hoshinpo. At the wall, 33T will deal the most damage, though 236T can also deal solid damage in corners. 236T is also very devastating under ceilings. Kasumi's throw game is considerably integral to opening up and gaining good damage over overly defensive opponents.
- Her hold game is surprisingly good for what is mostly a rushdown striker. She deals standard damage for the most part, though her Low K Hold and Expert Mid K Hold can lead to solid juggles against most opponents along with netting environmental damage or setting up favourable oki situations. The Expert Mid K Hold can also hit ceilings for more carnage and destruction of the opponent. The standard Mid K Hold isn't too shabby either due to the nice oki situation it sets up in front of Kasumi. To augment Kasumi's hold game further, she has high and mid parries to effectively "option select" certain situations when you're put on defense. Her high parries aren't recommended because they're unnecessary quite frankly, but her mid parries are great at option selecting option's mid mix-ups (I.e. it'll beat both Mid P's & Mid K's). Her parries aren't exactly as stellar as other characters, but they do allow her to usually garner a guaranteed back throw or a 6P6K dependent on how much advantage she actually gained, which can vary a bit based on the recovery of the move parried. She also has "Expert parries" that allow her to instantly enter Hoshinpo for a mix-up, though these parries aren't really better than the standard parries but having options is always nice! It does look cool to punish something with the Hoshinpo Oboro throw from behind!
- Kasumi's movement is really good, with numerous ways to transverse the stages and position your self where you need to be. She's got her generic movement, along with Hoshinpo dashes, forward flips, overhead flips, and backflips to dance around in style! Her Korean Backdash is decent enough, inputted by 214214 repeatedly. It works well to hover around mid-range when you're attempting to engage an opponent waiting for an opportunity to pounce with a powerful CH stun off of either 66P, 66K, 4P or 3K for instance. Though if your opponent's keepout and defense sucks, you can just run in on them and pressure them to your heart's content! You may need to try different approaches if your opponent has either strong defense or weak defense. If they have strong defense you'll have to be more careful in how you try to pressure opponents, along with being a bit more patient. If they have weak defense, you can focus almost entirely on getting on the offensive and staying on the offensive. However take heed that opponents with weak defense may be able to compensate for that with stronger than average offensive skills. In this case, you want to try and pounce on them as quickly and swiftly as possible before they can get their own offense started. Under most circumstances, Kasumi will want to stay in close, and will want to stay at this range for majority of the fight if she's running an "offensive pressure" gameplan.
- Kasumi's safety can become a huge liability if misused, but wouldn't exactly be considered "terrible". On paper, she's quite unsafe after majority of her strings, and even mid-string, however, you're only going to throw punish her if she actually finishes an unsafe string. Generally Kasumi's safety comes from utilizing string delays and free cancels to initimidating effect. You can't punish something when you don't know when it's unsafe to go for the punish! However, Kasumi does have some safe-on-block moves along with some frame traps revolving around them. Her 6PK and any variation of it like PP6PK all pushback far enough to be completely safe from punishment despite being -12. Same with the 33K Mid K launcher: it's -11 on block but pushes the opponent out of punishment range. 4H+K is also a good move to set up frame traps with being only -6 on block. A tactic you can do is perform one of these safe moves, then perform 44P strings immediately after to CH linear retaliation attempts, or further frame trap them with 44PP~ etc. Works well after a blocked 6PK.
- Her tracking is excellent with various tracking moves on all hit levels including an i14 tracking mid P and an i15 tracking mid K that stuns and can even launch in certain situations. Her P+K mid tracking attack can also be accessed from her 5P string in the form of P6P. Her H+K high kick tracks and provides a powerful stumble stun on CH that can guarantee follow-ups. This kick can also be accessed from PPK and related strings. 1K is her go to low tracking move, which also happens to be good at opening up opponents in general. Kasumi also has a ranged tracking attack in the form of 66H+K, which can kill step over a good distance. The move is fairly slow and unsafe however. Her numerous lengthy strings also have great "retracking", making it difficult for an opponent to sidestep Kasumi at all, forcing the opponent to have to deal with her string mix-ups, and offensive pressure.
How to Go About Training Kasumi
- The recommended thing to do when you first are learning Kasumi is to familiarize yourself with her moveset via the Command Training. Kasumi has a lot of string variations to take note of. You may have to go over Command Training a few times to get a good grasp on her moveset compared to some other characters due to the high volume of techniques featured. The primary focus should be on memorizing all the points where a string can branch off along with practicing delaying all points of said strings.
- After you're good with Command Training, it is recommended to turn on the Move Details then, acquaint yourself with Kasumi's 5P and 6P strings. 5P has numerous follow-ups and branching points allowing you to hit all 3 heights, and allowing for the maximum amount of mix-up potential. Hoshinpo transitions are also possible off of certain points within the 5P strings (P6P6~ or PPK~ for example). 6P doesn't have as much string variation as the 5P strings and thus requires you to work her string delays more, though it still allows for quality mix-up capability. Once you're acquainted with 5P & 6P's move properties, it is recommended to acquaint yourself with Kasumi's wall game.
-> Your go to wall slam will be 6P6K
-> Use 6PP, 9K, 7K6, 3KK, 6KK, H+KK, 66KK & 2KK as alternate wall slams for a mix-up
-> After 6P6K, 6PP, 9K, 3KK, H+KK, 2KK or the like, perform: 33P~BT2P~PKK6K (Be sure to press H to free cancel after 6P6K or 9K before the 33P juggle!)
-> After 6KK or 66KK, perform PKKK
-> After 7K6, perform PP6P6K
-> 33T & 236T are good at wall, along with 6T, 5T, 4T and 66T~2T being able to net wall damage
-> if you're back is to the wall, try to set up 4T to swap positions on your opponent thus putting them in the corner
-> 9P+K & 9P can also be used to escape corners
-> 7P can become a solid +GB attack if Kasumi jumps off a wall
- After familiarizing yourself with Kasumi's wall game, it is recommended to get acquainted with Kasumi's throw game. Her throws are solid and plentiful:
-> i5 T is her neutral throw (45 dmg, environmental potential, breakable)
-> i7 6T is her punish throw (50 dmg, has a wall version when Kasumi is in front of the wall)
-> i7 66T~T is her combo damage & position switch throw (generally sets up 70+ dmg + potential environment damage)
-> i7 46T is her standing reset throw (25 dmg, +10 frame advantage)
->i10 4T is her position switch throw (56 dmg)
-> i12 214T is her hold punish throw (62 dmg)
-> i12 236T is her launcher throw (sets up 57-70+ dmg, environmental damage potential including ceilings)
-> i17 33T is her hold punish and heavy damage throw (68 dmg)
-> i29 8T & 9P~T are her jumping throw (56-58 dmg)
-> i39 HOS~T is her stance throw (60 dmg)
-> i5 2T is her crouch throw (50 dmg)
- i7 1T is her crouching launcher throw (50-61+ dmg)
-> i5 Behind T is her standard back throw (55 dmg)
-> i10 Behind 4T is her high damage back throw (62 dmg + environmental damage)
- The i5 & i7 6T throws will have standard "punishment" purposes for the appropriate negative frames on block, whereas 4T can be used to punish -11 or worse. The 5T neutral throw can also be used to net quick environmental damage if the positioning allows for it. The most commonly used throws will be either 236T or 66T~T to net solid juggle damage against the opponent. If the opponent is good at breaking 66T~T or you're struggling with the timing, you can go for 4T or 214T for respectable damage. 33T is the best throw for punishing whiffed holds at 102 dmg on HCT despite being i17. Use 8T or 9P~T (preferrably) against locked down and overly defensive opponents. Use 46T to open up a defensive opponent for a +10 standing reset. HOS~T is used to pick off opponents that freeze up or whiff standing holds during Hoshinpo mix-ups. Under a ceiling, 236T becomes very dangerous for Kasumi's opponent, and gains priority over the other slower throws. 1T also has the ability to ceiling hit.
- Once you're acquainted with Kasumi's throws, practice juggles for 236T, 66T~T, 1T, 1H, 46H & her parries.
-> After 236T use:
- 6K~PPKK (57 dmg, large knockback + wall slam range)
- 66~KK7K6~9PK6~KK (62 dmg)
- 66~KK7K6~K~PP6P6K (66 dmg, wall slam & good oki)
- 66~KK7K6~K~PP6PK (68 dmg)
*If you're feeling adventurous: 66K:K~66K:K~PP6PK (70 dmg)
*66~KK7K6~K~PP6PK2K can force tech if the last hit is delayed enough
- In front of a wall: 66~PK~PPKK (70 dmg) or 6K~PPKK (67 dmg)
- Under a ceiling: 33K~66K:K~PP6P6K (89 dmg) or 33K~66K:K~PP6PK (91 dmg)
- Under a ceiling near a wall: 6P6K~33P~BT2P~PKK6K
*236T~4H+K~4P is guaranteed under a ceiling for a powerful potential CB setup
* PB is guaranteed under a ceiling after 236T
-> After 66T~T use:
- 6P6K~PKK7K6~KK (70 dmg)
- 6P6K~KK7K6~9PK6~KK (76 dmg) (results vary based on opponent)
- If 6P6K wall slams: 33P~BT2P~4PKK (85 dmg)
*6PK is guaranteed and can set up stun reset situations
-> After 1T use:
- KK7K6~K~PP6P6K (59 dmg, wall slam & good oki)
- KK7K6~K~PP6PK (61 dmg)
- KK7K6~9PK6~KK (55 dmg)
- In front of a wall: 4PK~PKK6K (59 dmg)
*Under a ceiling 4H+K~4P is guaranteed for a powerful potential CB setup
-> After 1H use
- KK7K6~9PK6~KK (59 dmg)
- 66K:K~PKK6K (55 dmg, good oki)
- In front of a wall: 33P~BT2P~PKK6K (63 dmg)
-> After 46H use:
- 236P~KK7K6~9PK6~KK (67 dmg)
- 236P~KK7K6~KK (58 dmg)
- In front of a wall: 33P~BT2P~PKKK (65 dmg) or PK~PPKK (67 dmg)
- Under a ceiling: 4H+K~PKK7K6~KK or 4H+K~PKK7K6~9PK~KK
*PB is guaranteed after 46H under a ceiling
-> Off of a standard parry like 3H use:
- 6P6K~KK7K6~9PK6~KK (76 dmg)
- 6P6K~PKK7K6~KK (70 dmg)
- If 6P6K wall slams: 33P~BT2P~4PKK (85 dmg)
Edit: Here's a video of the first part of the tutorial:
