Cloud and Magic

**Darkslayer** · 06-18-2011 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Cookies

Firaga can't be shield bashed no, Firion is staggered by it. Also, BB is alot faster than SF. Admittedly it's not going to deal with an SF spammer that's high above you, but then nothing Cloud does can really solve that.

Yes, I know firaga can't be shield bashed but how about blade beam? I think it's still pretty unsafe to use blade beam against firion if it can be shield bashed.

That's the point about sephiroth so it's kinda useless to use BB. I still think it's better to have DC and firaga.

BTW, I tried using it today and all I can say it is a decent mid range attack but really nothing special. I think it can lead to assist combo but you need to have the enemy near a wall in order to connect with assist. I'm still not sure about this because it maybe a fluke that I was able to connect it with AI.

I think the only other advantage of it is it's one of the cooler looking moves Cloud has.

**sairawr** · 06-19-2011 02:30 AM

Firaga + BB = mid-long range ground pressure.
BB for interrupting attacks and building up AST; Firaga for combo-ing purposes, high damage and annoying all those FAD users out there.

Well, at least that's what I use them for. Add the fact that these are ground moves, it makes them a little bit useless against aerial fighters. Then again, almost all ground moves are useless against aerial fighters. -_-

**Cookies** · 06-20-2011 08:32 AM

The first part of Sairawr's post is just right.

I don't think you're looking at it quite right Darkslayer, it's not meant to be used as a straight up attack like Firaga or DC. It's meant to be used to punish/interupt slower moves and create some pressure, whilst being relatively safe. The things that make it safe are the fact that it's guard staggering at very close range, needs to be double blocked at medium-long range and it can't be reflected. That's one of the biggest advantages it has over all three forms of fire (although it's hard to actually reflect Firaga back at you besides at very close range): it can't be used against you. Fire is easy enough to block and if you miss punishing that then now your opponent has some pressure against you. Fira is easy enough to reflect and at close-mid range will probably come back right in your face, which can be monopolized with assists. Firaga basically has to be blocked at close range to hit you, and will probably still hit them, so it's relatively unsafe to block, but still possible.

As for fighting Firion, I can't remember if it's blocked by SB because normally it needs a double block, but SB is Block Mid priority (normal block is block low), but that's not important, it's really great for punishing Firion's ground attacks, especially Ropeknife and Reel Axe.

You don't have to use it yourself, but there's no denying that it can be a very useful attack.

**Darkslayer** · 06-20-2011 02:00 PM

After trying it for some time, I can confirm that it can punish some slower moves. I will agree that it is one of the safest magic cloud has but other than these, I don't think it is really worth equipping over DC, SB and firaga. It can be useful if you have an EX build in conjunction to DC. These maybe the extent of this move. I don't see anything special about it.

As for firion's SB, it can be shield bashed. I tried it against Max AI firion. I was pressuring it w/ BB and I ate his magics back so I don't think this will be a good pressure tool against firion and any other characters who have block counters(Exdeath, CoD).

What I have to admit about using it is I really like effects. It's really cool when Cloud shouts "You're gone!".

**sairawr** · 06-22-2011 03:10 PM

The beam part can be SB'd by Firion, but the melee slash part cannot be SB'd because it's melee high priority. Though, I experienced one time that Firion blocked the beam part of BB with SB; he blocked the first hit perfectly, but the explosion hit him lol. It must have been like that because he blocked at the maximum range of BB where it explodes or something. I dunno.

**Darkslayer** · 06-22-2011 04:48 PM

You're right about the melee part of BB that can't be shield bashed. Sorry about that I didn't make it clear. But most likely you will use BB as a mid range pressure tool so I don't think it will work well against firion. But you have a point in the explosion thing though. It maybe possible that firion cast SB quite earlier so the block frame was not enough to block the whole beam of BB. I still can't confirm this.

**SLKrn108** · 06-22-2011 05:19 PM

Well I can say that Blade Beam has a faster recovery than the three fires.
So it's useful when fighting Exdeath as he can easily block BB with Turn Guard and thanks to the faster recover, you have a larger window to dodge his counters which you can then punish. Plus it's safer to use on Exdeath than using any of the three fires against him :P

Even though it doesn't seem as useful as the three fires, at least you can see it being used against Exdeath.

**Darkslayer** · 06-22-2011 05:28 PM

I haven't tested it to exdeath but maybe you have a point about the recovery time.

**ChaosMuramasa** · 06-22-2011 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by SLKrn108

Well I can say that Blade Beam has a faster recovery than the three fires.
So it's useful when fighting Exdeath as he can easily block BB with Turn Guard and thanks to the faster recover, you have a larger window to dodge his counters which you can then punish. Plus it's safer to use on Exdeath than using any of the three fires against him :P

Even though it doesn't seem as useful as the three fires, at least you can see it being used against Exdeath.

As true as this is, a good Exdeath would wait for you to dodge after he guards it (since we all do it by instinct) and would dodge punish with whatever counter he was going to do (probably the sword counter, assuming it reaches that far). So I wouldn't really depend on BB or whore it out against an Exdeath but yeah, it is a bit safer.

**SLKrn108** · 06-22-2011 07:26 PM

Well yeah it's true that a good Exdeath would wait it out until you dodge. But just because you're playing against a good Exdeath player does not make that person a mind reader.
If you don't dodge to cancel the cooldown, then they are bound to unleash a counter on you sooner or later. Mind gaming is key to fighting an Exdeath with any character.

Anyways back on topic, I can only see Blade Beam being useful in that one matchup and that's about it. It's useless against Sephiroth, Ultimecia, Kefka, Gabranth, Lightning, and much of the cast. Blade Beam just doesn't have the kind of homing properties that the three fires have to make it as useful as them against many melee characters, where homing projectiles are very useful. For interrupting attacks, most attacks you can interrupt are going to be HP attacks because many people would try to avoid equipping slow, punishable brave attacks. You can't interrupt many HP attacks either because people wouldn't just throw out HP's like that. You can try punishing cooldown but like I said, everyone prefers faster attacks with low cooldown and it's not going to be able to interrupt as well considering it's 37F startup. The fires are all at 25F startup but have longer cooldown so the only reason I could think of equipping Blade Beam over Fire/Firaga would be for the low cooldown or the vertical range BB gives when close. The low cooldown makes BB a decent mid range poke but it's usefulness is just that. It's a safe mid range poke but it still doesn't really substitute for Sonic Break and such though. I'd rather much prefer having Firaga and Sonic Break with Double Cut than equipping BB (besides the Exdeath match)

Also to clarify, BB can be blocked once. You have to standing still though to be able to fully block it once. In all other situations, two blocks are needed.