DOA5LR Want to be ready for online play on PC by launch!

[DoujinNeko]

I've played a load of fighters over my years but I've never managed to go beyond smashing buttons and praying, I've read a lot of the theory and in practice I get what I need to learn/do but the minute I enter a round it's back to spamming buttons or losing to a wipeout

I've made the decision that by the time they put online play into DoALR on PC I want to be at least able to compete at the lowest level online, For characters I really want to learn Honoka or Marie Rose (or maybe Rig)

I did read a sticky around here somewhere about the right way to learn but it melted my brainm, but it said something about going into training mode and going through a characters movelist again and again and again till it's muscle memory, is that a good thing to try?

Also, do I have to memorise the frames of everything because that seems huge and overwhelming and I still don't really understand what it all means (you want to be plus frames and avoid minus frames or something to gain advantage?)

Yeah I'm a massive scrub T^T

 

[TehLoshrie-Chan]

1. choose a character you want to learn
2. play the character's command training once (you should know how to do critical burst)
3. go play normal arcade
4. experiment on how you can do critical burst in multiple ways
5. once you can do critical burst any way you want, experiment on the best combo you can follow up after the critical burst
6. once you mastered doing critical burst combo, play higher difficulty until you can beat it without retries
7. profit

 

[tokiopewpew]

Yeah I'm a massive scrub T^T

This is the first thing you need to keep in mind but stop worrying about at the same time when you play online or other players. However, better get rid of the word scrub because mentioning this literally implies that you already got the wrong mindset to get started with this game (sorry if this sounds a bit harsh).

One thing that is important and has been already mentioned is to pick one or two characters you want to use as your favorite/main and you want to learn the basics on. The more characters you play at the same time, the longer it will take to get used to their inputs and their overal playstyle. This means, you'll probably never be able to "master" a character and tend to play them in a way you're actually not supposed to (e.g. you play grapplers like strikers). Since you already know that you want to go with Honoka and Marie, you should jump into the lab with them until you're familiar with their moveset and it's properties, e.g. which move stuns or which moves launch or what your fastest attacks are.

Unlike the previous poster, I wouldn't recommend to focus on extended critical burst combos that much. For the beginning, it's enough if you know one or two combos or setups you can perform constantly and which cover all hit and stun levels and work on most weight classes. However, doing the command training and the combo challenge multiple times can help you to get the idea of what kind of moves you can connect to get some working setups. The more you perform these in real matches then, the faster you'll get the muscle memory and be able to focus on other things as plain combo execution.

You don't need to know much about frames right at start. A general rule that you can keep in mind and that can be applied to most of the situations ingame is that you're at plus frames (advantage) after you've blocked an attack from your opponent, while he is in negative frames (disadvantage). Once that happens, most of your faster attacks will beat his ones out if he continues attacking after getting blocked. Of course you need to apply this rule vice versa, that's why button mashing usually does not bring you far.

Also, never stop asking questions if you don't understand things. That's something I feel many newcomers are afraid of. I really recommend to try looking for someone with more experience who can act as kind of an mentor to you and anwer questions, explain things or spare with you a lot. Though it's not easy to find someone like that, this site here may be the right place for a search.

Hope it helps you a bit.

 

[Kronin]

Also, never stop asking questions if you don't understand things. That's something I feel many newcomers are afraid of. I really recommend to try looking for someone with more experience who can act as kind of an mentor to you and anwer questions, explain things or spare with you a lot. Though it's not easy to find someone like that, this site here may be the right place for a search.

Why hard? There is a thread just for this reason: http://www.freestepdodge.com/threads/helpful-character-expert-list.4490/
@DoujinNeko just try to ask for help here about peculiar characters when you will feel right to do it =)

 

[Brute]

AI won't help much, because the tradeoffs between the triangle system are nonexistent against them and you will basically just spam strikes, even from disadvantage. Against people the entire game approach is different. You'll have to learn in practice against other players; just the way it goes.

Some things you can learn that will help getting started, though:

Learn your fastest pokes on each hit level.
Learn deep stuns on each hit level.
Learn a launcher on each hit level.
Learn your basic throw/OH options (usually 12 frame) and your punish throw (usually 6T).
Get a gist of your stance(s), how to enter them and what they're supposed to be used for.

So, for Marie the breakdown would be something like this:

Fastest Pokes:
High: (i10)
Mid P: (i12)
Mid K: (i14)
Low: (i14)

Launchers:
High:
Mid P:
Mid K:

Deep Stuns:
High: (i15)
Mid P: (i14)
Mid K: (i16) or (i21)

Throws:
Standing Punish: (i7)
Low Punish: (i5)
Standing OH: (i16)
Low OH: (i10)
Heaviest Throw: (i12)

Stances:
Rondo: Parries High/Mid Ps.
Minuet: or Sidesteps and evades a bunch of shit.
Back-Turned: