Characteristics, Strengths and Weaknesses (top)
Bass is a big wrestler and his grabs are his best tools. He has access to all different types of throw and offensive holds in the game and has great speed and range on said tools, capable of punishing moves not punishable by the rest of the cast. While he may not have the raw throw damage of Alpha-152, he arguably has the best throw game, capable of ending a match with three throws. His strike damage is high and can get guaranteed damage in different situations.
His other strength is a consistent vortex where he can continue pressure and force a wrong guess on an opponent while keeping them standing. This makes his offense dangerous, with loops and resets allowing for continuous pressure on an opponent.
However, his major weaknesses end up being his below average speed, his height and size which makes him easier to crush-hit and lack of strings, forcing him to rely on hard reads to gain the initiative. His weight helps in mitigating damage in combos, but his large build also makes him an easy target. At the start of every round, he is by default on the defensive due to his lack of priority and needs a good guess to start an offense.
Basic Skills (top)
Throws (top)
It's important to look at Bass' throws first, as they are some of his primary tools. Making good use of throws makes the difference between winning and losing.
Primary throw used for pressure and punishment. You keep an opponent standing with +10 to your advantage to do as you please and attempt to reset the situation and force an opponent to make a decision. Does 50 points of damage and 75 on hi-counter. Has a wall version where you can get loads of time to set up a guessing situations for the opponent when recovering.
Secondary punishment tool and does 72 damage. Leaves you and your opponent at long to mid range. The wall version of this throw is arguably one of the best if not the best wall throws in the game since you can get great oki by going for a ground throw blender and still be at frame advantage.
Part of a combo throw series with different finishers and good for positioning. Whether you want to direct your opponent forwards or away, you'd have to choose for either damage or oki.
- > leads into a on a back facing opponent for a ground throw. Also ideal to throw someone towards a wall for another full wall combo.
- > > does big damage and is his most damaging throw tool.
An unbreakable throw combo with similar options to
series with similar damage and oki options, albeit a bit toned down. Very good throw series worth keeping in your arsenal if you want to have the option for a free ground throw or good damage in case you wish want to sacrifice some damage for very lenient execution.
TFBB (
)
A while-rising/while-standing throw which is very good for its damage, range and environmental application. The non-bufferable startup of 16i can be an issue in case you want to use this as a throw punish, but it's still a very crucial part of his throw game especially for punishing hold attempts. Conditioning your opponent to fear this throw can lead to having more options to pressure you when land a hit or you're at advantage.
Having multiply different variations of this throws depending on environmental positioning gives plenty of options for you to deal loads of damage and end a round very quickly.
Strikes (top)
Fastest high and primary tool for disruptions. It's your best tool for changing the momentum and gives great stun. Unsafe, but that still shouldn't stop you from using this as a replacement jab.
Tracking mid with followups. Essential for general poking and interruptions.
is safe and is usually what you'd use if you want to condition an opponent to start holding or trying to press buttons after seeing the initial poke.
acts as a launching tool to start an offense and opponents in a vortex, usually on counter hit or crouching opponents. You have enough time to hit confirm and fish for holds before launching.
is a very essential tool to keep in your arsenal.
As his quickest mid with 14i, it's a very essential strike as it's a true elbow class attack capable of shutting down abare attempts.
is a mid-mid combo on hit, though holdable if an opponent reacts.
is a mid-low string though the transition between the two moves are slow.
Another mid kick which causes a sit down stun on crouching opponents and also acts as a ranged poke.
is a mid-mid followup that has good safety, but can be interrupted.
is a mid-high string which is safe similar to the other followup but after knockdown you can dash in and do a ground throw if theee's no teching.
Doing
on its own is a good choice to poke and gauge an opponent.
One of his most important moves and primary launcher is most situations. Has a safe
followup and is a great whiff punish. This is primary move to use after a sit-down stun to go for guaranteed damage.
against the wall gives a guaranteed ground pick up if the first hit causes a wall slam.
Primary mid kick launcher. A frame slower than
but does a higher launch and causes no wall slam. Is horribly unsafe however, so I don't recommend using this outside of critical stun situations.
A high kick launcher with very good recovery. Best used in critical stun situations as you'd get a higher launch than on normal hit. Also very unsafe and not recommended for neutral situations. Useful in big damage combos.
Lows (top)
Bass doesn't have great lows, but there are those which do stand out for being useful and fit into his game.
Unlike most
s, this one is unconventional as it's slow (17i) and has a high followup. On normal hit, it leaves you at -5 and which it's not the most ideal situation to be in, the quick transition to the high can make it difficult to hold or react to. Best used to gauge an opponent's habits and to interrupt as the two hits can combo on counter hit.
Slow but very good low and hard to react to. Landing this move can give you some very good mixups where you can force an opponent into a nitaku. The string does have followups but I recommend not using them until you're
blocked. You can make use of your while rising state moves which can be very beneficial in creating more mixup situations and doing easy damage.
Circulars (top)
Since tracking moves in DOA are considered fully circular, there's no need to worry about semi-circulars.
and
have already been covered, so I'll be looking at the other tracking moves.
A slow and standard tracking moves that can interrupt pretty much everything other than Marie Rose's special side step. Can hit grounded and stop things like Helena's Bokuho.
A backhand chop that that gives very good stun an counter hit or critical stun for either a crumple gut stun or limbo stun so you can get good guaranteed damage with the limbo. Usually you can set up this move after a stun or a ground throw pickup since you can always get a limbo stun afterwards for a guaranteed launcher.
A high tracking move part of a string with
and
, which is a high and mid mixups. This string series is not interruptible by anything other than 9i jabs or mid crushing moves.
itself goes into BT, which makes it a good move for both whiff punishment and a back turned transition.
A very slow move but great launcher on all hit levels. Works very well as a post-Critical Burst launcher for high damage.
Offensive-Holds (top)
Offensive holds are act as catch grabs with scaling depending on whether they punish a strike or not. They're more often used as secondary tools to stop an opponent from pressing buttons in certain situations to force them into committing to other options more favorable to you.
Primary offensive hold with very good range. It's a solid enough tool to be used as a secondary throw punishment tool against moves which may be strike punishable or too far away for normal throw punishment. Normally, it's best to be at a situations where you're at +6 to successfully beat out faster strikes. If you want to play a simple Bass, it's a good idea to adopt this as your sole OH.
This is a bit of a strange one since it's a chargeable OH with different states, each having different range and damage potential.
- (18i ~ 27i) on it's own is slightly slower and has shorter range compared to but does more damage.
- :[H]::[P]: (28i ~ 36i) This one is weird since it has the least range out of all three versions, but does the DOA3 damage. On hi-counter, it does a good 100+ damage, but it's not very accessible in the first place and hard to set up a situation to use it in the first place.
- :[[H]]::[[P]]: (37i) is the ultimate version of this OH as it can transition into a combo throw or he can transition into his launcher with to do way more damage. Has great range and catches loads of things if you can bait an opponent to fall for this and it's slow and an opponent can react and punish. If you're willing to risk it, you can get deal a lot of damage.
BT and
Two OHs done with your back turned towards and opponent. The reason why I have included both of these together is mainly because they are both the same in terms of use and share the same startup speed. At 10i, these two are the fastest OHs in the game with an average of 70 to 100+ of damage, especially on hi-counter. The range on the standing OH is shorter than the crouching version, but the crouching version acts more like a reset while the standing version does the real damage.
Wall Throws (top)
This triggers when your opponent's back is to a wall. Against the wall you can get a fall down effect which eliminated all wakeup options with the exception of side rolls after recovery, giving you enough time to set up a mix ups and resets.
Triggers when your back is to a wall. Does great damage and gives good wake up where it goes straight into a vortex where you can go for a ground throw. Definitely one of the best wall throws in the game.
Combos (top)
Bass combos are pretty simple.
&
Normal Hit
&
Counter Hit or Hi-Counter Hit
Counter Hit
for heavyweights
Normal hit
Counter Hit
Hi-Counter Hit
Power-Launcher Combos (top)
Power Launcher combos are worth learning since they're some of the highest damage combos you can get in the game.
:[[P]]:
:[[K]]:
Wall Combos (top)
Most wall combos after wall splats would give the same combo.
Wall Splat! (Anything other than
&
)
Throw Combos (top)
> Rope Bounce!
Basic Strategy (top)
Beginning of a Round (top)
Your main concern would be to try to either land a hit or create enough distance to cause a whiff and punish. Since speed is not Bass' strength, against persistent players that dash in before a round starts, you'll need to either or for high interruptions to start a nitaku or continously Korean back dash to either force an opponent to follow you to a wall and free step to put their back to the wall or just hope they screw up on their initial offence to leave themselves open for punishment with something unsafe or obvious.
Starting a round with Bass is not easy and is one of your main challenges and that involves dealing with the speed handicap. There are no wrong choices and it all comes down to your opponent and how they use their character and what patterns they use. 